What’s inside • The world of social media is changing what a brand means. • A “Social 4-Pack” powers successful social network marketing. • Restaurants can create “brand love” for their dining experiences. Cecily Sorensen, Director of Communications, Firehouse Subs Dan Kim, Chief Concept Officer & Founder, Red Mango Brad Taylor, Vice President of Customer Marketing, Coca-Cola

1. Executive Summary
How to Spread Brand
Love Through Effective
Use of Social Media
October 17, 2012
What’s inside
• The world of social media
is changing what a brand
means.
• A “Social 4-Pack” powers
successful social network
marketing.
• Restaurants can create
“brand love” for their
dining experiences.
Sponsored by:
Cecily Sorensen, Director of Communications, Firehouse Subs
Dan Kim, Chief Concept Officer & Founder, Red Mango
Brad Taylor, Vice President of Customer Marketing, Coca-Cola

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY :: PA G E 2
Overview
The popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter has transformed the
marketing landscape for restaurant operators. One-way mass marketing has
given way to close, even individualized, engagement with brands online, where
“brand lovers” share their experiences with family, friends, and the world at
large.
For companies, social networks represent an enormous opportunity to tell their
stories and to enable customers to share and amplify theirs with Tweets, Pins,
Instagram photos, and other multimedia content. In embracing social media,
marketers must strive to remain responsive, upbeat, honest, concise, and true to
their brands.
Context
Three experts discussed the impact of social media on restaurant marketing.
Key Takeaways
The world of social media is changing what a brand means.
Prior to today’s audience of interconnected networks of consumers, the media
marketing was one-way…from TV broadcast, to cable channel segments, to the
introduction of the internet.
It’s no longer about
messaging to your
customers; it’s
about corresponding
Now, in the 2010’s, social networks are transforming the brand marketing and communicating
landscape, replacing one-way broadcasts with many-to-many conversations, and
sharing consumers’ personal experiences, both good and bad. And with them—and
measurements are moving from media impressions to consumer expressions
that have significant impact on the perception of brands with other consumers. sharing their stories.
Brad Taylor
As a consequence, the very definition of a brand is shifting. Previously, a brand
could be defined as the sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging,
pricing, reputation, and advertising. Today, a brand is:
A collection of stories about the experience with
your product or service that people share with their
friends, family, and social networks.

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY :: PA G E 3
A “Social 4-Pack” powers successful social network marketing.
Given the emphasis on stories and sharing, Coca-Cola developed a set of
hallmarks for effective marketing in this environment—its “Social 4-Pack,” which
consists of:
1. Storytelling. Stories—from both companies and consumers—are the new
and valuable marketing currency. Stories are so powerful because they
represent the way people connect, remember, learn, and share. For example,
Firehouse Subs focuses its brand marketing on its founders’ actual firehouse
heritage, how their foundation has donated nearly $5.5 million to first
responders, and the story behind the unusual datil peppers in its signature hot
sauce.
2. “Shareworthyness.” Beyond customer stories, marketing content aimed at The Firehouse
social networks must be designed with sharing in mind. For example, Coca-
Cola rigged a beverage vending machine to become a “happiness machine” Subs brand today
by dispensing gifts, and then filmed customers’ spontaneous reactions. To
date, this entertaining video has received more than 4.4 million views on is a collection of
YouTube, driven exclusively by enthusiastic sharing. For Coca-Cola, “Share”
button clicks (representing active expression) are more important than “Like” stories. It’s not a
button clicks (representing simply an impression).
Coca-Cola actually turned a beverage dispenser into a story. Its innovative theme; it’s the
Freestyle™ dispenser lets customers choose from a selection of 125 branded
drinks using a touchscreen, and even mix different flavors. The fountain has real deal.
its own Facebook page where guests post photos and video with the Cecily Sorensen
machine. Plus Coca-Cola provides a smartphone app that lets consumers
locate the nearest unit. During the initial test in the Southeast, Coca-Cola
teamed up with Firehouse Subs (which had a proprietary cherry limeade
beverage) to create a tour bus that garnered press coverage.
3. Listening. Social media obviously enables companies to listen for (and
respond to) consumer complaints, but it is equally important to listen for
opportunities. Red Mango, a chain of frozen yogurt and smoothie stores,
noticed that its Facebook fans were posting smartphone photos of its stores’
frozen-yogurt products. The company leveraged this activity by featuring the
best pictures on Pinterest, a popular online “corkboard” of favorite products,
services, recipes, destinations, artwork, and other items. Each year since it
was founded, Red Mango has continued to add social networks: what started
with MySpace in 2007 has expanded to
Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Vimeo, Pinterest,
Celebrate
Share
photos
Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare, and
fans
&
brand
Google+. In addition to the company’s brand
page on Facebook, every franchisee has its own
page to focus on local conversations and
Ask/answer
Connect
promotions. Along the way, the company has
ques8ons
brand
lovers
grown to 200 stores and rates highly in
consumer sentiment surveys.

4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY :: PA G E 4
4. “Flawesome.” Operational and quality mistakes are bound to occur, but social
networks enable companies to deal with them proactively and transparently.
We use social
By communicating directly with an unhappy consumer, marketers can often
turn a critic into a fan. When confronted by a vocal “foodie” blogger in Las
media as a central
Vegas, for example, Firehouse Subs arranged a meeting with the company’s
president during a visit to the city. His criticisms addressed, the blogger is
hub through which
now a booster of the restaurants. By the same token, when a customer’s
complaint is ignored, it is more likely to be shared widely; social media is a
everyone can
powerful amplifier.
communicate with
By connecting these social activities with conventional campaigns, marketers
find that return on investment is both substantial and straightforward to one another.
measure. Red Mango embeds coupons in Tweets, for example, and then tracks Dan Kim
their POS redemption. In support of local events like grand openings, Firehouse
Subs posts VIP-only free sub offers in Facebook, then counts how many
customers appear. In fact, Facebook provides a “Custom Audiences” tool that
helps companies match email lists with Facebook users for campaign purposes.
Restaurants can create “brand love” for their
dining experiences.
“Brand love” is “loyalty beyond reason,” when consumers
go out of their way to praise a product or service, purchase
it more frequently, and recommend it to their friends. What
can restaurants do via social networks to promote this
passion?
• Stay positive. Keep all communication upbeat, and
resist the temptation to respond defensively to an angry
consumer. Coca-Cola has found that its Facebook fans
deal effectively with negative posts.
• Leverage multimedia. Foodservice is inherently visual,
so restaurants have lots of potential video and
photographic material, and they can encourage
customers to upload their own. In an upcoming
campaign, Firehouse Subs will give a dollar for every
customer picture of its famous pickle barrel.
• Keep it short. Maintain a consistent brand tone and be succinct. Include a
question or other call to action in every post. Twitter is the ultimate platform
for brief brand messages and near real-time conversation.
• Be honest. When a mistake is made, admit it and move on. Trying to erase it
from the Web will only backfire.
• Be social. Communicate on all platforms every day, and mention partners
whenever possible. Try to respond to all contributors, whether positive or
negative. Red Mango has a four-member social media team that manages to
respond to nearly every post.

5. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY :: PA G E 5
Cecily Sorenson
Because dining is a social activity, it naturally lends itself to the immediacy and Director of Communications,
fun of real-time smartphone Tweets and photo uploads. With social networks, Firehouse Subs of America
Cecily Sorensen is the Director of
restaurants enable a customer to extend and share his or her dining experience
Communications for Firehouse Subs, one
with friends, family, and the restaurant operator. For Firehouse Subs, an online of the nation’s leading fast casual
share is essentially the same as a compliment or criticism delivered during a restaurant brands. Having worked in
meal, and it should be treated no differently. public relations for 11 years — agency
and corporate, Cecily is a PR girl at heart.
In addition to her leadership of public
relations efforts for the brand, she directs
Other Important Points the social media, guest services and
internal communications strategies for
• 140 characters. Search for #SpreadBrandLove posts at Twitter.com. the 525+ unit restaurant chain that
Mr. Taylor’s Twitter feed is @bcoketaylor; Mr. Kim’s is @DanKimRedMango; specializes in steaming hot subs and
@savinglives through the Firehouse Subs
Ms. Sorensen’s is @cecilysorensen.
Public Safety Foundation.
• The Happiness Machine. Watch Coca-Cola’s viral YouTube video
Dan Kim
at bit.ly/S9j1dG. Founder and Chief Concept
Officer, Red Mango
Dan is a true entrepreneur, having taken
an idea from his own kitchen table to the
corner office and beyond. After thousands
of recipe trials in his own kitchen, he
perfected a healthy, all-natural frozen
yogurt recipe in 2006. In 2007 Dan
founded Red Mango. He is currently Red
Mango’s Chief Concept Officer.
Dan graduated from the UC Berkeley’s
Haas School of Business and worked as
an investment banker with Donaldson
Lufkin & Jenrette and as a financial
analyst with Deloitte. He also held jobs
for a number of startups, including
Stamps.com.
Red Mango is the #1 Zagat-rated Yogurt &
Smoothie chain in the United States and
received both “Best Smoothie/Frozen
Yogurt” and “Top Healthy Options within
the Quick Refreshments Chains” awards
in 2011.
Brad Taylor
Vice President, Customer
Marketing, Coca Cola Company
Brad Taylor serves as Vice President,
Customer Marketing for the Coca-Cola
Refreshments Division of The Coca-Cola
Company in Atlanta. In this role, Brad
leads a team of marketing professionals
who provide strategic marketing support
to the divisions’ largest chain customers
in the Foodservice and On-Premise
channels including restaurants, colleges
and universities, at-work, malls, specialty
retail stores, and other channels where
Coca-Cola fountain or bottled beverages
are bought and consumed one drink at a
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